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I’ve never really had a “bad Halloween,” though that phrase makes it sound like it should end in a hospital visit to qualify.

Let me clarify: I’m a lazy prick on Halloween and rotate through the same handful of costumes every year. I can’t be bothered to spend money or invest time or do anything just to spend one night as a drinking problem in disguise. I usually cobble together clothes I already have and go as Glenn Danzig if I’m really lazy or Pris from Blade Runner if I feel like doing elaborate makeup.

But one year, I’ll say, kind of sticks out as a year that Halloween went poorly. It was freshman year of college and, for context: I was not a terribly well-liked freshman! That was mostly due to the fact that I was terrible, but pretty much all 18-year-olds are so I try not to get hung up on it. Anyway, I went to a very specific kind of academic institution and the kids there (mostly just as freshmen) took themselves very seriously and turned up their noses at the idea of wearing high heels and makeup and such. I was a bit prissier at 18 and definitely didn’t fit in visually, in addition to the fact that I wasn’t very likeable. So, it was a rough time, socially.

When Halloween rolled around, I figured it’d be a great opportunity to show that I wasn’t the shallow girl I’d been (fairly and unfairly) branded… and yes, if you are identifying a host of problems with this line of thinking, then: “crack detective work,” I say to you. Anyway, I decided to go as Angus Young, my favorite member of the great AC/DC.

Procuring items for the costume was easy: I went to Goodwill and got a blue blazer for $9 and I already had some blue running shorts. I borrowed an oversize white dress shirt and red tie from a dude friend in my dorm and, fortuitously, another friend of mine had given me his “lucky Angus hat” before going to college as a token of good luck in higher learning, so I even had a blue newsboy cap.

Like so.

Halloween came around and I was really psyched on my costume, because it was perfect and cost only the price of a Goodwill blazer. I went to the school’s big Halloween party, thinking everyone would finally accept that I wasn’t all about mascara and hairdryers and just sucking on a fundamental level and then… my plan went to shit.

The first person who came up to me wore that judgey, lip-curling expression people get when they’re obviously not impressed with you and asked, “Are you Britney Spears?”

“No! I’m Angus Young!” I am the opposite of Britney Spears!

“I don’t know who that is,” the person said and walked off.

I proceeded to have this conversation roughly 3000 times before the night was out. Not one person–except this cool metalhead kid who dropped out–recognized that I was supposed to be a devil-worshipping (probably) Scottish-Australian guitar god dressed like a perverse schoolboy as opposed to… Britney Spears in the “Baby… One More Time” video who, it should be noted, wears a plaid fucking skirt and workout clothes, not any of the things I was wearing that night.

Anyway. That Halloween was shitty for me, but clearly it didn’t end in broken glass or anyone’s stomach getting pumped or a razor in a candy apple, so I can’t really complain. But I did learn a valuable lesson: it takes more than a good Halloween costume to make friends. :(

Uh, that costume is amazing! I don’t know how to tell you this, but you went to college with assholes.

http://Mommyish.com/ Eve Vawter

Umm, this may be the best Halloween costume I have ever seen, and now I wanna make my kid be Angus Young.

http://thegloss.com/ Ashley Cardiff

It’s actually a really great baby/toddler/kid costume.

CMJ

People don’t know who Angus Young is?

http://thegloss.com/ Ashley Cardiff

Great question.

Sean

Last year I dressed as Jack Harkness from Torchwood for the low, low cost of $20 to buy an officer’s greatcoat from a surplus store (I already had Febreeze, so that was technically free). Everything else was similarly cobbled together from existing wardrobe bits, and I was dead proud of it. It wasn’t perfect, but it easily earned at least three nerd-stars out of 5.

I went to two parties in this costume, and spent most of both nights answering the question “OMG are you a soldier?” with “yeah…sure”.

I remember that costume! I think you proved that you weren’t shallow…but everybody else was.

Samantha_Escobar

I love this story. During my freshman year, I remember wearing pants to a Halloween rave or something of that nature, and people kept asking me if I had something to hide. 18-year-olds are dicks. For the record, your costume was awesome.

Juli Rossi

I dressed up as Angus once, too, and it was awesome – but it worked pretty well because a bunch of us went as Rock Gods, so I had an Ace Frehley, Eddie Van Halen, and Slash as back up.